Monday, November 16, 2009

After a summer at Yellowstone, and time with the family, I am heading home. This whole seasonal adventure was much more intense than I had ever expected: in friendships, experiences, emotions. Not that everyone who does this could experience the same.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

I am working in Yellowstone this summer. The trails are marvelous, but work keeps getting in the way. Seems like there is just not enough time to commit to the finer views, the distances to cover, that primitive release that comes with a long time in the back country.

So, I'm pondering a long hike. The mountains all around here merit serious attention. Or perhaps a base camp by a river. Or get back on the CDT. Humm

Friday, March 27, 2009

The landscape by its patient resting there, teaches me that all good remains with him that waiteth, and that I shall sooner overtake the dawn by remaining here, than by hurrying over the hills of the west.--H.D. T

This is much like a favorite quote I found in a trail register on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2000. "In the end you find, no one wins, and the race was only with yourself.

So, take the path of your own choosing, and don't be dismayed if no one leads, or follows.--Unknown

It seems there is so much impatience, and looking back over life, didn't everything go so fast. In the end, how much of it will matter.

Friday, March 6, 2009

I have decided, in spite of all the dreary economic warnings, to quit my real job and start a seasonal lifestyle. This summer I shall work in Yellowstone National Park.

"Why should we live with such hurry and waste in life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow."---H.D. Thoreau

One season at a time, one adventure, one love, one goal: enjoy each to its fullest without haste or forward wishes.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary"---H. D. Thoreau

I'm not sure which part of this quote intrigues me most: the success unexpected, or the putting of some things behind, or of passing an invisible boundary. But, I do know this, it all comes down to one thing: moving forward confidently to a life one has imagined. Without confidence, or a vision, there can be no direction.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air; drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each.Be blown on by all the winds. Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams, and oceans, at all seasons." H. D Thoreau

This guy knew there is no place with perfect weather all the time. So, I walk in the woods, in rain, sleet, and snow. I drink from the spring that is now flowing, after 3 years being dry from the draught. The pine needles are crisp, but I haven't tasted anything else this winter. Its cold out there!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

"Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business." H.D. T

The best friends are real with us. Time is too precious, life too short to waste it pretending.

We finally have a real family in the White House. They can understand our concerns. I think we're going to hear the hard brutal truth about the state of our country. We crave reality, so we can deal with it effectively.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

I'm just thrilled how the price of gasoline has fallen. Not that the government helped. Bush begged OPEC to increase production, candidates proposed a Gas Tax holiday. A cry to regulate market speculators went up. Or how about get automakers to come up with electric cars? Nothing ever got done, all just talk.

It was us, the people. We enjoy "stay cations", use bikes or walk, carpool, combine trips. Billions less miles driven in 2008. Demand is down.We're buying less stuff made with petroleum.

Hopefully, we won't ever forget $4 gas, the pain at the pump. Don't get tricked into buying that truck or SUV. Don't let some bargain now rob you later. I love it. We the people, for the people, by the people.

Friday, January 16, 2009

I've insulated and paneled the studio, laid a vinyl floor covering, and found an area rug. The curtains are from a thrift store, as is the furniture. All told, this living space of nearly 200 square feet cost less than $4,000.

My studio is a 12 x 16 metal cabin with four windows and a regular door. It has steel stud construction, bought unfinished inside, with a pressure treated floor. I added a porch by first cutting a bunch of wood to build a woodpile, then laid a chunk of plywood on that to form a table/work surface. With scrap lumber, I built a frame for the porch roof, and secured it to the underside of the studio's roof. Finally, I topped it off with a 10x12 Wal-mart tarp and anchored it with guy lines and tent stakes.

I think it is time to revisit H.D Thoreau's Walden Pond. The father of minimalism, he wrote "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." This in 1854.

How appropriate for 2009, with our free falling economy and fallacious government experts. How long will this recession last? For me, its time to live deliberately, discover the essentials, and find I have, after all, truly lived.